How did avocados evolve?

[Blobbenstein]

Wiki:

Co-evolution
In 1982, the evolutionary biologist Daniel H. Janzen suggested that the avocado may be an example of an 'evolutionary anachronism', a fruit adapted for ecological relationship with now-extinct large mammals (such as giant ground sloths or gomphotheres). Most large fleshy fruits serve the function of seed dispersal, accomplished by their consumption by large animals. There are some reasons to think that the fruit, with its mildly toxic pit, may have co-evolved with Pleistocene megafauna to be swallowed whole and excreted in their dung, ready to sprout. No extant native animal is large enough to effectively disperse avocado seeds in this fashion.[64][65]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avocado#Co-evolution

I have wondered for a while if maybe the mechanism for dispersal was simply to be carried, or dragged away, the flesh eaten, and the large seed growing from there.

Surely a larger animal might crunch up the seed if it was eaten whole. Perhaps it could have been swallowed whole though.

 

[yakherder]

Now I'm imagining that squirrel from Ice Age trying to open an avocado seed.